According to Meghan it was ""Just a cosy night ... we were just roasting chicken... just an amazing surprise, it was so sweet and natural and very romantic. He got on one knee."" This is the love story of Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle. How they met, their courtship, his proposal, and the royal wedding.

The Sunday Times bestseller A Radio 4 Book of the Week, June 2021 'Highly readable ... deserves to take its place among the first rank of modern royal biographies' Daily Mail 'The narrative is as suspenseful as any thriller. Truly, an excellent read' Lynn Barber, Sunday Times Married for over seventy years to the most famous woman in the world, Prince Philip was the longest-serving royal consort in British history. Yet his origins have remained curiously shrouded in obscurity. In the first book to focus exclusively on his life before the coronation, acclaimed biographer Philip Eade uncovers the extraordinary story of the prince's turbulent upbringing in Greece, France and Nazi Germany, during which his mother spent five years in a secure psychiatric clinic and his father left him to be brought up by his Mountbatten relations in England just when he needed him most. Remarkably the young prince emerged from this unsettled background a character of singular vitality and dash - self-confident, capable, famously opinionated and devastatingly handsome. Girls fell at his feet, and the princess who was to become his wife was smitten from the age of thirteen. Yet alongside the considerable charm and intelligence, the prince was also prone to volcanic outbursts and to putting his foot in it. Detractors perceived in his behaviour emotional shortcomings, a legacy of his traumatic childhood, which would have profound consequences for his family and the future of the monarchy. Containing new material from interviews, archives and film footage, this revelatory biography is the most complete and compelling account yet of his storm-tossed early life.

Throughout history rulers have used dress as a form of legitimisation and propaganda. While palaces, pictures and jewels might reflect the choice of a monarch's predecessors or advisers, clothes reflected the preferences of the monarch himself. Being both personal and visible, the right costume at the right time could transform and define a monarch's reputation. Many royal leaders have used dress as a weapon, from Louis XIV to Catherine the Great, and Napoleon I to Princess Diana. This intriguing book explores how rulers have sought to control their image through their appearance. Mansel shows how individual styles of dress throw light on the personalities of particular monarchs, on their court system, and on their ambitions. He looks also at the economics of the costume industry, at patronage, at the etiquette involved in mourning dress, and at the act of dressing itself. Fascinating glimpses into the lives of European monarchs and contemporary potentates reveal the intimate connection between power and the way it is packaged.